I have new images for you as well as some updates about my personal life! Since most of my personal life ends up coloring my images in some way or another, I suppose that makes everything relevant, right? 🙂

I recently had a shoot with a model who was new to me, the lovely Teri Wyble! Sadly for me, she does not live in Los Angeles, but she does travel here now and then and we’ve already made plans to do more shooting next time she’s in town. She was such a joy to work with; she’s not in modeling just to look pretty or puff up her ego, she’s interested in telling compelling stories. She has a natural grace and beauty which lend themselves perfectly to my kind of photography. On top of that, Teri is also just a really wonderful soul, full of love and kindness, and we share many of the same interests. It was a perfect collaboration!

I’m also going to be sharing a bit of my spiritual journey with you guys here. For anyone who’s curious, I am a lightworker, but I don’t define my spirituality much beyond that. Organized religion does not work for me, but I know many people who love their branch of it. If it’s a good fit for you, stick with it! If not, you’re still ok and you can still be a spiritual person.

I believe in an unconditionally-loving higher power, which I like to refer to as Source. “God” brings to mind all sorts of connotations which I personally find hindering. I believe that everyone and everything is made up of energy, as physics teaches us, and since energy cannot be destroyed, it’s most logical to me that life continues beyond death. I have no doubts about this. I have spoken to and had contact with those who have passed over… which would have been enough on its own to convince me of our eternal life, but I do feel science supports this idea as well.

Toward the beginning of the year, I experienced an EXTREMELY powerful guided meditation with a lovely woman named Mojo. If you’re interested in her services, you can find her page on Fiverr here! She currently doesn’t advertise her guided meditations, which she does live over the phone with you, but if you contact her, she can arrange it for you.

During this guided meditation, I actually got to meet and speak with my two main guardian angels. Prior to this, I had believed in angels in a vague sort of way, but despite how much I would have liked it, I never felt that I could successfully connect with any of them. I have also done other guided meditations which are supposed to introduce you to your angel without much success other than feeling more centered afterward, like with any meditation. My point is, the meditation with Mojo was very different. I could actually feel and sense my angels; I could hear and even see them in my mind. I know now that they have always been with me every second of my life, and they will for the rest of my time on earth. I am never alone and they are a great comfort to me.

This new connection with my angels led me to buy a handful of books about angels; I wanted to learn EVERYTHING that I POSSIBLY could about them! As I’m sure you all know, my passions are all-consuming. When a new one ignites, my life becomes focused on that and only that until I feel I have a grasp on it. For anyone else interested in learning more about angels, I recommend Angels In My Hair by Lorna Byrne, and The Angel Therapy Handbook by Doreen Viture. Both are fascinating, well-written and impart excellent knowledge. Angels In My Hair is more of a memoir while the Angel Therapy Handbook is more of a textbook. I feel they compliment each other well.

I mentioned being a lightworker a little bit ago. What I mean by that is that I am certified at level 2 in Reiki. I do energy work, sending positive energy to people, animals, places, situations, objects, whatever you want. It’s healing and can never be used to harm. I also began meditating much more regularly this year. In the past, when I’d try meditating, I would always enjoy the effects of it, but I had a lot of trouble making myself do it with any consistency. I’m not sure what changed, but for some reason, this year I was able to push past that. Once I got over that initial block, I discovered that I LOVE meditating! It’s incredibly healing and healthy for your body, mind and soul. I found it was a bit like starting to work out. At first, you don’t really want to do it, but after a little while of making yourself stick with it, you like it and actually begin craving it. I now have meditation (guided and not) as a regular part of my life and I’d highly recommend it to absolutely everyone! One thing I discovered are the millions of meditation tracks on YouTube; literally something for absolutely everyone and every interest. There are also long tracks of nature sounds and/or music, some with binaural beats in them, some lasting up to eight hours, so you could listen to them all night while you sleep. I’ve been learning a great deal about crystals as well from my dear friend Jessi who owns the shop Mineralism Crystals. I HIGHLY recommend her if you’re in the market for anything! Even if you don’t see something in her online shop, chances are, she has it. I’ve placed numerous orders with her and they always exceed my expectations! Also, she is a fellow spoonie, so your money goes to help support her as she’s unable to work a “regular” job; win-win!

As all these new revelations were opening up to me, meditation, angels, being able to “hear” animals more clearly when I contacted them energetically (for example, I was able to help one very special cat overcome his abandonment fears when he was newly adopted, something I was honored to have been a part of), Teri came along and we had our shoot. I knew that I wanted some of this deeper spirituality to be reflected in something we shot, but I wasn’t really sure how. However, I did know that I wanted to photograph Teri in a beautiful lace dress I had… that combined with feeling inspired by some images Geoff shot recently with a back-lit model that made me decide I would shoot an “angelic” look with the gauzy white fabric and light behind her. (Although really, just try and make her NOT look angelic; that would be a far more difficult job.)

As I suspected, Teri made the perfect angel. Sorting through the images later, I realized that I was creating a new race of DreamWorld beings. The Aethereans, as I called them, are DreamWorld’s angels. They live high in the mountains, away from the more populated areas so they can be focus on devoting themselves to spiritual studies. They are very wise from their decades of pursuing the truth in every facet of life, as well as skilled and compassionate healers. Many of the other DreamWorld inhabitants send their young to train with the Aethereans for several years, where they are taught empathy, love, plant and animal care, healing, sacred geometry and the mysteries of the universe. I thought that the Aethereans needed some kind of uniform or mark that visually informed everyone of who they are and the spiritual life they have chosen for themselves, so I decided they would all have a flower of life symbol on their foreheads. I wish I’d thought to actually apply this in real life to Teri, but this idea only came later. Thankfully, Photoshop made it possible to add it to all the images!

Teri did such a spectacular job modeling, she made it so very difficult to choose which images to work up! I ended up editing quite a few more photos than I typically would pick because I simply could not narrow my selections down any more. It took a bit longer to finish these because of the volume I had to work through, but also because of a couple other wonderful new journeys I was taking…

Through a very miraculous series of events, I discovered Calista Ascension. Calista is one of those very rare spiritual teachers who actually embodies and lives everything she preaches; I have met very few more accepting, genuinely loving and wise people in my life. She offers numerous classes which I was lusting after, but when I saw that she created her own Unicorn Healing System which I could take online from the comfort of my home, I was hooked. I had to take it. Immediately.

I’ll let Calista explain the course in her own words:

Unicorn Healing™ is a hands-on healing modality for empowerment and wellness, but also a development tool that can awaken your Souls’ gifts and purpose. It can be used as a stand-alone therapy or complemented with other energy practices.

Brought forward in 2009, direct from the Unicorn realm via Calista, it is a very sacred modality that can provide all that you are ready to receive.This is a course for those who are ready to step-up, break-through and arise in their POWER!

Just as you have a Guardian Angel that walks with you so to you have a Guardian Unicorn. Once regarded as the fabric of fairytales, Unicorns are very much real. They have walked with us since the times of Atlantis and are now returning to our awareness to help us awaken to love and the infinite potential we hold within.

As this is a distant learning course, you can set your own pace and progression. A commitment is required however as this course is deeply transformational – the more you put in, the more you will receive. The Unicorns are ever-present to those who wish to better themselves and assist Mother Earth to ascend with grace.

Yes. Unicorns. REAL Unicorns. As I mentioned earlier, I am well-versed with Reiki energy, which, I learned, is apparently an earth-based energy. The Unicorns however hail from another planet (bear with me here) so their energy is cosmically-based. (For those interested, Calista recorded an excellent podcast all about who and what the Unicorns are, where they come from, etc, with much more detail than I’m giving in this post, which you can listen to here.) I hadn’t expected their energies to feel particularly different from each other; I just hadn’t thought about it. You may believe that these Unicorns are simply a pretty fantasy I’m escaping to in my imagination (which I’ll freely admit is an escape I would likely pick!) but OH MY GOD – once you’ve felt their energy, there is NO mistaking them. They are every bit as real as we are, and their energy is incredibly powerful… yet also full of the most unconditional love I’ve ever experienced. It’s nearly impossible to describe how energy feels in words, but the ones that keep coming to mind when I think about my Unicorns are high, clear, clean, bright, powerful, silvery, shimmery, penetrating, deep, beautiful, wise, loving, celestial, ethereal, and immense. I love Reiki, but the Unicorns really kicked things up a huge notch for me.

As part of my studying, I went through an attunement with their energy, where I met my three guardian Unicorns, who all serve different roles, and who are all equally exquisitely beautiful. I spent 30 consecutive days meditating and communing with them every day in different ways so we could really get to know each other. And I also practiced doing healings with the Unicorn energy, both in person and across distance, much like you do with Reiki. The Unicorn healings I’ve done so far have been the most powerful I’ve yet witnessed in my life. Problems that have bothered people for very long times suddenly lose their sting, allowing the people to let go of them. Hurts are overcome, trauma is healed. They are truly miraculous. And my guides assure me that I will become physically healthy myself in time.

My guides… yes, I should mention the other guides too. Meeting the Unicorns as well as my angels has opened my mind up to the idea of there being more spiritual guides for us in the universe than I had previously realized. Currently, in addition to my guardian angels and Unicorns, I also have a dragon guide, a pegasus guide and a mermaid guide, although I have not worked with them nearly as long or as deeply as the Unicorns. I’ve also started to sense and sometimes communicate with the elementals all around me. The trees in my yard, for example, will remind me if the bird feeder has gotten low or the plants need watering. I’m becoming a MUCH better gardener with their help! 🙂

Then, right on the heels on my finishing up my Unicorn Healing course, I began taking Doreen Virtue’s Fairyologist course! This is more or less what it sounds like; you learn all about the various fairies that exist, what they’re about (the fairies are mostly concerned with environmental and animal issues, but certain groups emphasize different causes), how to communicate and work with them. At the end, you take a quiz and, assuming you pass, you become a certified Fairyologist. As I’m also in the process of having all my Unicorn work reviewed by Calista as we speak, I’m on the cusp of becoming both a certified Unicorn Healer and a certified Fairyologist… both are NOT things I expected that I’d be saying if you’d asked me at the beginning of this year!

I’m telling you guys about all this for several reasons. One, working with my guides and walking my spiritual journey is becoming an ever-more-present, ever-larger part of my life. I wanted to just lay it all out there in one go and not feel like I had to tiptoe around it on my own blog. Two, everything in my personal life effects my art. Case in point, the images I’m releasing today. I probably wouldn’t have even shot them if I hadn’t met my guardian angels, and I certainly wouldn’t have added the Flower of Life symbol to the Aethereans (who would not exist) without having learned more about sacred geometry in my studies. In my life, there is very little separation between the real world and my art. It’s all one big pot of stew where each ingredient enhances all the others.

And lastly, I’d like to invite all of you to explore your own spirituality. When you find what works for you, there is very, very little in life that is as rewarding! There are many charlatans both online and off, so you must be discerning in who you choose to listen to. A strong connection to your intuition and sense of truth will help you navigate the waters. Any of the people or authors I’ve mentioned in this post have gotten the thumb’s up from me if you’d like to start there!

I am an energy worker. I work with Unicorns and angels. I talk to animals, fairies and elementals. I am a creator. I collect crystals. I am an empath. I am a photographer. I am clairvoyant and clairsentient. I am a fulltime student of truth. I am a healer. I am a woman. I am an artist. I am Sarah. I am me. I don’t apologize for any of that. You go be you, and don’t apologize for any of it either. 🙂